06.17.09

My XBox 360 Wireless Receiver for Windows died. No more green light, no more being recognized by the OS when I plugged it in. Weirdly enough, the first one I got was like this on purchase so I exchanged it for this one which worked fine… up until now.

Luckily, I found this fix from Eding1 which worked brilliantly. Amazing the fuse blows so easily, and so irrevocably and yet nothing else on the USB chain had any issues at all. Bad Microsoft hardware I guess…

Opening the receiver (use a knife or something to lever the top off):

Unscrew and turn the circuit board over then solder across F1:

Notes from the comments:

You can test whether this will work by connecting something like a paperclip across the fuse without desoldering it, then plugging it into your PC.

Apparently you can use foil paper and electrical tape to connect across the fuse. Personally I’d recommend soldering, but if you don’t have a soldering iron it’s worth a try.

If “lever the top off” isn’t explicit enough for those not insane enough to pull apart everything they own, to get the case off jam, and I mean JAM, a butterknife in. Wedging it in the crease that is above the wire (between grey and white). Getting it in there good then wiggle and twist all about until the glue gives way. Because every inch other then where the wire is was thoroughly glued down. The circuitboard is receased so no need to be gentle, just don’t angle down.

Be warned folks. Just tried this trick on mine and it was the receiver that was causing the short. Just fried a USB port on my computer. Everything else seems okay for now.

Can’t precisely tell from the photo, but do any of the components up near the area the cable connects have a “F1” label beside them (on the second photo)? That would be my guess, but a really, really shaky one.

If they do, try bridging the component with some foil to see if you can get the receiver to be recognized by your PC.

60 euros? did you repair 3 of that things? only cost about 16€ at amazon…anyway i just taped a piece of copper wiring from an audio cable on the fuse an secured it with like 7-8 rubber bands 😀 looks terrible but works just fine. (=

I bought the (black) controller + wireless dongle bundle last September from a local Best Buy. Worked great under heavy use for a few months then I pretty much stopped using it. The dongle stayed attached to the PC 24/7, and just tonight I bought Skyrim and dragged out the controller only to see it wasn’t working.

Just like everyone else here, I did a quick google, saw this blog, and immediately went to the hardware store for a $7 soldering pen. Took off the old fuse and blobbed over it, 15 mins later it’s working like a charm. Think I’ll unplug it with the controller for storage this time around, though.

When my wireless receiver died a couple of months ago I (stupidly) called Microsoft instead of just googling the problem.

As common as this issue seems to be, the rep. on the phone seemed quite surprised I was having any problems. Microsoft must certainly be aware of this manufacturing defect by now. Yet the rep. on the phone was useless and refused to help me out because I was outside of their pitiful 3 month warranty period. He did, however, disclose that the part has been discontinued and so even if I was within the warranty period he would not be able to offer me a replacement, only a refund.

So what did I do? I found a Future Shop store that still had the “Xbox 360 Wireless Controller for Windows” in stock and bought one. The next day I returned it for a full refund because it was “defective.” (I just swapped out the wireless receiver part and kept the working one.)

Some people may consider this immoral; I do not. The store will send it back to Microsoft and get credited for it. The only loser ends up being Microsoft and I’m not losing any sleep over that. They sold me a lemon, so to speak.

Truly appreciative of people that post their experience on the Interwebs. Found this in less than 30 seconds and have a working receiver again (a black one). My son is having the same problem – I’ll get him up and running again in no time.

Thank you so much! All of a sudden my receiver randomly stopped working, it would not get detected by any computer I have. I knew there was something with a open circuit [as long as the USB cable is intact it should at least recognize SOME sort of usb device], but it would have taken me much longer to troubleshoot if not for this guide. Literally took me 5 minutes to open up and fix, works like a charm now!

Well, mine broke down yesterday evening. Was quite a bit worried since my soldering skills are almost none, I just splashed a big blob of soldering over the (broken) fuse and it seems to work. Any risk in using this? It works, but can it overheat because of this?

Almost 5 years later and you’re still helping people. My receiver just stopped working one day a few months ago and I finally have time to start gaming again. Your post turned into a 5-minute fix!
Thanks!

It drives me crazy when I see fixes like this. This is like saying to someone who has a TV which keeps tripping a breaker to simply short the terminals on the breaker…bah “It’ll work”… sure if you don’t mind fires, fried wires and a damaged TV set.

The fuse is there for a purpose…I don’t have one yet to check, but I suspect they have used a fuse too close to the surge current that the device has occasionally. Bumping up the fuse to a resettable (or one shot) will fix the problem AND protect your USB subsystem on your computer and the Receiver from damage in those rare moments.

If you have a Multimeter, put the meter on DC current setting and place the probes across the faulty fuse and plug it in… you’ll see what the current draw from the Receiver is, 300mA? 500mA? no idea, I’ll know when I get my unit. After you know that we can get a replacement SMD part to fit where the old fuse was… the fuses that reset themselves (common on USB buses) probably 500mA is a likely good choice. MUCH safer than simply shorting the contacts where the fuse was.

Not many people have the equipment you’re talking about and although (obviously) replacing the surface mount fuse yourself or upgrading it to something resettable/right value is “better”, it’s no good to someone that simply can’t do that.

Right now I have 120+ people with successful fixes and 1 with a blown USB port that I clearly posted up top as a warning. Seems like good odds to me, and stop trying to equate this to the same risk as a breaker throwing – 20 amps and 110V is somewhat different to 500mA at 5V.

Weird… I could not get it to work with electrical tape, but first try with duct tape worked just fine! I made sure it wasn’t touching anything else on the board. Hopefully it lasts! Thanks for the easy fix.

Thought some of you guys that want to go a little further down the rabbit hole might find this interesting.
found some basic information on the type of fuse used in this receiver. it is a “Surface Mount Fuse, 1.6 x 0.8 mm” “0603FA Series, Fast-Acting”.
Figured this out after taking a few physical measurements “L (1.6mm)” X “W (.81mm)”.
on my original microsoft branded receiver the fuse is “green” and has a captial letter “D” on it.
here are few data sheets to give you an idea of what it is.

I have owned one of these original white receivers, Model 1086, P/N X809782-001 for about 7 years and today it died coming out of standby, which brought me to this page. Does anyone know if this issue has been fixed in the newer black models? (Amazon ASIN B000HZFCT2)

Jaz/jw: I admire your research. Perhaps I can fill in a few gaps for you. The 0603 designates a L x W size of 0.063″ by 0.031 or 0.032″ (the 06 and 03 come from these measurements) — the same in metric is 1.60mm x 0.80 or 0.81mm which corresponds to an equivalent metric 1608 (expand your search to include these as well). The letter “D” code marking designates a current rating of 0.25 A (250 mA), not 500 mA. That narrows it down to one of these:

While it’s true that USB ports run at 5.00 +/- 0.25 V, you want some overhead to be safe. 32V will work just fine. Low-power devices, such as this receiver are supposed to pull one unit load off the USB (100 mA for USB 2.0, 150 mA for USB 3.0). An overcurrent event is what blows these fuses, so either they are faulty, or the system has a serious design flaw.

What would be the risk of bypassing the fuse? I fixed the controller using this method, but I am actually scared to plug it in. A fuse protects the system from a surge. And it bust because of one such ampere shift/surge in the first place, yea? What would happen if the same thing happens again? 🙁 Opinions are welcome.

I see a lot of people saying everything’s fine and everything’s working again. But I am thinking if its a ticking time-bomb which can fry something somewhere and we might not know until its too late. Just talking about a possibility.

But still, thanks for putting this up as a ‘fix’. It CAN work, talking about the surge measurements in amperes are minimal compared to the bigger electronic devices. But still, there is a case.

I am thinking another thing as well; what if we do this fix, and then get a USB hub that has a fuse on it, and connect the receiver via that. I believe externally powered USB hubs can have a over-surge protection on it. This would atleast protect the system to some degree.

Thanks for the guide, video, and tips shared here. I don’t have a soldering gun so I used a small piece of aluminum foil and a small strip of electrical tape to bridge over the F1 fuse. I then took some more electrical tape, folded it into a small wad, and placed it on the bottom of the housing unit so it would be sure to push the foil onto the F1 spot once the circuit board was back in place. Plugged it in and it’s alive again. Easy peasy. Had to superglue the housing back together so hopefully I won’t need to open it up again. 🙂

Hey Jw I recently did the soldering job on my wireless reciever and when I plugged it back in the green light came on but now it seem to have lost its range, I now have to put it on my lap for it to pick up the controller and it is causing a lot of discomfort when I play. Could the problem b related to the fact that I used very thin wires to bypass the fuse? Please help I just dnt have the heart for keyboard anymore.

Tried this fix, didn’t seem to work. I have tested that I have voltage on various parts of the board (heck even to the led) but the led won’t light up and windows doesn’t even notice a device is plugged in when I plug it in. If I hold down the button I can feel the processor getting hot, so I know I have power. Any ideas from here or should I just throw it away?